Directed by: Matthew Vaughn
Written by: Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman
Starring: Taron Egerton, Colin Firth, Mark Strong
IMDb Link
Kingsman: The Secret Service was one of 2014's surprisingly good movies. A respectful lampoon of James Bond-esque spy fair, it was a lot of cool and silly action sequences with a grounding in main character Eggsy's journey to become a Kingsman. The Golden Circle matches with great action sequences, but fails on the other end.
*Warning: Potential Spoilers Ahead*
Eggsy (Egerton) is back, now a full fledged Kingsman and dating the princess he boinked in the butt at the end of the first film. After the Kingsman base is destroyed, he and Merlin (Strong) have to head to the US to join up with the Statesman, Kingsman's American equivalent. Behind the attack is Poppy (Julianne Moore), the biggest drug lord in the world.
If Kingsman is a lampoon of British Spy movies, then The Golden Circle feels like a lampoon of Kingsman. The film enthusiastically tries to re-create what everyone loved about Kingsman, and for a lot of things, it succeeds. The action sequences in the film are as high-octane and well choreographed as the first film, featuring ridiculous violence mixed with hit-or-miss funny inanities. It never reaches the heights of bloodlust expressed in the now infamous "church scene" from the first film, but it's clearly trying to outdo itself, at least succeeding above all else in being entertaining. Likewise, all of the Statesman equivalents are so entertaining that they could carry their own movie; Pedro Pascal in particular as Statesman Agent Whiskey (their agents are named after alcoholic beverages rather than Arthurian characters), who is the second-most entertaining new character, getting the best action scenes and carrying himself with a hell of a lot of swagger.
Most entertaining, though, is Julianne Moore's turn as Poppy. It was hard to top Samuel L. Jackson as Valentine, but Moore is absolutely great in the most cartoonish way possible. She's the sweetest psychopath you've ever seen, at once charmingly adorable as a nostalgic idealist and disgustingly infuriating as she feeds people to other people as a power move. She's an unrealistic, over the top character played as unbelievably and over the top as possible, and Moore pulls it off so well. Like Jackson's Valentine, she also has an interesting ideology, twisted by psychopathy, that's at least worth seeing the movie to understand, especially with the resultant reaction from this film's parody of the US government.
That said though, this movie lacks anything that will make an audience care about what they're seeing. Eggsy's relationship with the princess is undeveloped and mostly exists to put a hilarious spin on a classic James Bond setup; it doesn't feel real and only adds to this film's overlong running time. The Statesman characters are fun, but don't get enough screen time to do anything beyond be cool and look good in the action scenes. Unnecessary plot development that defeats key emotional moments from the first film and add little to this film until the end, and key emotional moments from this film don't work as well as I expected them to. The Golden Circle's lack of weight ironically weighs down the experience of the film.
The Verdict: It's bigger, it's louder, it's not as good. While The Golden Circle turns the fun and silly dials to eleven, what little there is to try and ground you in to the movie and make you care falls mostly flat. It's enjoyable, but also forgettable. See it if you like the first one and don't mind it going even further over the top.
Rating: 6/10
Published September 21st, 2017
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